Legends take to field for charity raising event

Former Sri Lankan star and Sri Sathya Sai Sanjeewani Hospitals Batticaloa Director Aravinda de Silva (centre) along with G&G Group of Companies Managing Director and CEO K. Gowri Shankar (right) and Hatton Plantations Executive Director Menaka Athukorala at media briefing – Pic by Shehan Gunasekera

By Althaf Nawaz

The second edition of the One World One Family Cup 2025, a special charity T20 cricket match, will be held on 8 February at Sai Krishnan Cricket Stadium Sathya Sai Grama, Muddenahalli, Karnataka, India. This charity raising event will feature some of the prominent cricketing stars who played for India and Sri Lanka.

The founders of this mission, Sri Madhusudan Sai Global Humanitarian Mission (SMSGHM), conducted the first edition last year with the involvement of Indian players and opted to invite some of Sri Lanka’s 1996 World Cup players headed by Arjuna Ranathunga, Aravinda de Silva, Sanath Jayasuriya, Romesh Kaluwitharana and few more, along with some of the players who played for Sri Lanka in the recent past.

SMSGHM has touched millions of lives in India and across 80 countries worldwide. The core areas of focus include three main areas: firstly, the much-needed education – providing value-based free education to 3,700 rural children from Grade 6 to university and doctoral studies; secondly, healthcare – operating super-speciality hospitals, building the world’s largest free hospital and India’s first free rural medical college, delivering high-quality healthcare at no charge to over 3.1 million patients; and thirdly, the nutrition part, serving free morning nutrition to over 10 million children across 100,000 schools in India, improving both health and learning outcomes.

The Sri Sathya Sai Sanjeevani Super Speciality Hospital in Batticaloa, which is part of SMSGHM, has performed over 2200 heart related surgeries, from children to elderly people all around country, absolutely free of charge with the intervention of local and foreign doctors who volunteered to serve honorarily. 

A media briefing was held last Tuesday chaired by former Sri Lankan Cricket Captain Aravinda de Silva, along with Menaka Athukorala, Hatton Plantations PLC CEO and Managing Director, and G&G Group of Companies Managing Director and CEO Gowri Shankar.

Gowri Shankar emphasised the deeper purpose of the event, stating, “With the guidance and philosophy of Sri Madhusudan Sai, this exceptional event showcases the unifying power of cricket while raising awareness for the transformative humanitarian work of the Sri Madhusudan Sai Global Humanitarian Mission (SMSGHM).”

Aravinda de Silva, a key figure in Sri Lanka’s 1996 World Cup-winning team, elaborated on the theme of this year’s match— ‘Cricket for a Cause’, explaining that this will be his fourth and final innings of his life, which ultimately is serving humanity. While elaborating the tasks of this mission he said: “This year, legendary players from India and Sri Lanka will come together not as competitors, but as ambassadors championing the impactful work of SMSGHM. Through this match, we aim to support education, healthcare, and nutrition for underserved communities.”

“We intend to play a series in Sri Lanka in the upcoming years, and the main idea behind this match is to attract more donors to get on board with us and embark on this journey, which is a very worthy cause”. Aravinda concluded.

Sri Lanka legends (One Family): Aravinda De Silva, Arjuna Ranathunga, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Upul Tharanga, Thisara Perera, Muttiah Muralitharan, Chaminda Vaas, Ajantha Mendis, Ravindra Pushpakumara, Asela Gunaratne, Milinda Siriwardana, Tharanga Paranavitana, Nuwan Zoysa, Thilina Thushara, Marvan Atapattu, and Romesh Kaluwitharana

India legends (One World): Irfan Pathan, Yusuf Pathan, S. Badrinath, Naman Ojha, Piyush Chawla, Abhimanyu Mithun, Ashok Dinda, Venkatesh Prasad, Sunil Joshi, Parthiv Patel, Manoj Tiwari, and Sujith Somasundar